Should you take that mosquito bite personally?
By Mariah Quintanilla Some mosquitoes would rather not suck your blood but they do it anyway because you are the closest warm-blooded animal around. So why do some mosquitoes prefer biting humans to biting other animals? The scientific answer: it’s complicated. The same factors that regularly influence what you eat for lunch also affect whether […]
Chicago groups prepare for Nov. 8 election
By Christen Gall With six weeks until election day, organizations across the city are working to include voters that may otherwise be left out. “There’s a lot of energy in the Latino and Arab communities about what it [the election] means,” said Villanueva, youth engagement manager of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. […]
The evolution of the circus ‒ from spectacle to therapy
By Pat Nabong The circus once was associated with P.T. Barnum’s “freak show,” which for almost a century made a spectacle out of Siamese twins, the vertically challenged and people with deformities. Things have changed. People have begun to see the circus as more than a form of entertainment. Now, in different cities in the […]
Fate of key economic support program for Illinois pending
By Nona Tepper Congress will soon decide on the fate of an increasingly popular and controversial green card program that has generated millions of dollars in foreign investment in Illinois the past few years. Lawmakers are expected to extend the 16-year-old the EB-5 program past the September 30 deadline, but will mostly likely change its […]
English is Syrian refugees’ ‘key to survival’
By Maryam Saleh She couldn’t visit a doctor’s office without a translator. Or communicate with her children’s teachers. Or get around a city that felt daunting yet safe. Her Syrian high school education had taught her the very basics. And the two years she spent helping her kids with their homework in Jordan had forced […]
Siding with Standing Rock at the Naperville Powwow
By June Leffler [Package of Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline stories here] Every year, west suburban Naperville welcomes the Harvest Powwow, a rare occasion for non-natives to experience some representation of what Native American culture is. This year, the powwow took a strong stance on environmental justice issues facing Native Americans.
